The present document relates to ultrasound image enhancement. In particular, filters are used to enhance imaging.
Signal processing for ultrasound image enhancement and visualization typically is performed as a two-dimensional process. Planes are scanned. The resulting data representing the plane is filtered. The data for different planes are then used for two-dimensional imaging or rendering a three-dimensional representation.
Filtering may be applied to volume data. For volume or three-dimensional imaging, the computational complexity significantly increases as compared to filtering along a plane. Extending two-dimensional filtering techniques to three-dimensional filtering and filtering developed exclusively for volume imaging may be prohibitively expensive in terms of computation time, possibly preventing use for real time processing or requiring more expensive hardware.
Minimizing speckle noise is an important component of image enhancement in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional ultrasound imaging. In three-dimensional cardiac imaging, visualization of the surfaces of anatomic structures such as valves, heart walls, and the septum is of importance. Filtering is used to enhance these surfaces while reducing speckle noise. However, the computational expense to filter is high.